White doves of Cytherea, by your quest Across the blue Heaven's bluest highest air, And by your certain homing to Love's breast, Still to be true and ever true--I swear. HYPNOS, GOD OF SLEEP The shadowy boy of night Crosses the dusking land; He sows his poppy-seeds With steady gentle hand. The shadowy boy of night, Young husbandman of dreams, Garners his gracious blooms By far and moonlit streams. EXPENSES Little my lacking fortunes show For this to eat and that to wear; Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go! An obol pays the Stygian fare. London, 1910. ON SEEING WEATHER-BEATEN TREES Is it as plainly in our living shown, By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown? ADVENTURE Sun and wind and beat of sea, Great lands stretching endlessly. . . . Where be bonds to bind the free? All the world was made for me! OH, LADY, LET THE SAD TEARS FALL Oh, Lady, let the sad tears fall To speak thy pain, Gently as through the silver dusk The silver rain. Oh, let thy bosom breathe its grief In such a soft sigh As hath the wind in gardens where Pale roses die. DIRGE Never the nightingale, Oh, my dear, Never again the lark Thou wilt hear; Though dusk and the morning still Tap at thy window-sill, Though ever love call and call Thou wilt not hear at all, My dear, my dear. THE SUN-DIAL Every day, Every day, Tell the hours By their shadows, By their shadows. OLD LOVE More dim than waning moon Thy face, more faint Than is the falling wind Thy voice, yet do Thine eyes most strangely glow, Thou ghost . . . thou ghost. AH ME. . . . ALAS. . . . (_He_) Ah me, my love's heart, Like some frail flower, apart, High, on the cliff's edge growing, Touched by unhindered sun to sweeter showing, Swung by each faint wind's faintest blowing, But so, on the cliff's edge growing, From man's reach aloof, apart: Ah me, my love's heart! (_She_) Alack, alas, my lover, As one who would discover At world's end his path, Nor knows at all what faëry way he hath Who turneth dreaming into faith And followeth that near path His own heart dareth to discover: Alack, alas, my lover! PERFUME OF YOUTH (_Girl's Song_) In Babylon, in Nineveh, And long ago, and far away, The lilies and the lotus blew That are my sweet of youth to-day. From those high gardens of the Gods That eyes of men may never see, The amaranth and asphodel Immortal odours shed on me. In vial of my early years, As in a crystal vial held, What precious fragrance treasured up Of age and agelessness distill'd. _Thine but to give. Give straightway all._ Yea, straight, mine hands the ointment rare In great libation joyous pour! Oh, look of youth. . . . Oh, golden hair. . . . RAPUNZEL All day, all day I brush My golden strands of hair; All day I wait and wait. . . . Ah, who is there? Who calls? Who calls? The gold Ladder of my long hair I loose and wait. . . . and wait. . . . Ah, who is there?